Software fault or failed update on the 2017 Hyundai Tucson
1 crash 1 of the 14 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When software fault or failed update gets reported
Owners of the 2017 Hyundai Tucson report software fault or failed update at a median of 10,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 10,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 30,000 miles. It is the 16th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 20,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 14,160 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
100% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,000 miles | 6,000 miles | 7,800 miles | 10,000 miles | 18,160 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $0–$600 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure, every year of the Hyundai Tucson
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
The vehicle has a drive-by-wire system controlling the throttle and the 7-speed dual-clutch transmission. In certain circumstances, the throttle pedal has no effect on the throttle whatsoever. It happens most in 'eco' mode, but still happens in 'sport' mode, always at a relatively low speed (walking pace) or when accelerating from a stop. The vehicle has had one firmware update (at about 3k miles?) which did minimize the problem somewhat, but didn't eliminate it. At 7,900 miles the problem seems to be getting worse, and the dealer says there are no new firmware updates they are aware of. I am concerned because many times, when in slow or stop-and-go traffic, I've needed to accelerate and the vehicle simply wouldn't do it for what felt like forever, but was probably only a second or two. When the vehicle finally did start to move, it jumped forward at full throttle. The service writer at the dealership says this is a common complaint, and that other customers have also complained, specifically, about trying to pull out of their dealership onto a busy street and had their vehicle simply refuse to accelerate. On just one occasion…
The vehicle has a drive-by-wire system controlling the throttle and the 7-speed dual-clutch transmission. In certain circumstances, the throttle pedal has no effect on the throttle whatsoever. It happens most in 'eco' mode, but still happens in 'sport' mode, always at a relatively low speed (walking pace) or when accelerating from a stop. The vehicle has had one firmware update (at about 3k miles?) which did minimize the problem somewhat, but didn't eliminate it. At 7,900 miles the problem seems to be getting worse, and the dealer says there are no new firmware updates they are aware of. I am concerned because many times, when in slow or stop-and-go traffic, I've needed to accelerate and the vehicle simply wouldn't do it for what felt like forever, but was probably only a second or two. When the vehicle finally did start to move, it jumped forward at full throttle. The service writer at the dealership says this is a common complaint, and that other customers have also complained, specifically, about trying to pull out of their dealership onto a busy street and had their vehicle simply refuse to accelerate. On just one occasion…
Upon suppressing the accelerator pedal vehicle fails to accelerate from standstill creating a 2-3 "pause" that is highly dangerous especially when entering traffic, freeways, etc. This is clearly a problem that is documented however no recall has been granted for this model. It doesn't matter what road: city street or a highway. The vehicle hesitates and does not move when you need to! When the powertrain does finally take hold, the engine revs high and pulses forward causing yet another disturbing and potentially dangerous condition for driver and others on the road. This is clearly a mechanical and/or software glitch that will eventually result in accidents and bodily harm. Note this condition is sometimes intermittent therefore creating a false sense of driver control since you never know when you will face lack of proper acceleration. At first I suspected it was just the 4-cyl engine being small, but after reading about other people having exactly same experience.
Also reported on the 2017 Hyundai Tucson
Other engine problem
Other powertrain problem
Excessive oil consumption
Dual-clutch or clutch-pack failure
Other speed control problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 14 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does software fault or failed update happen on the 2017 Hyundai Tucson?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 10,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 10,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is software fault or failed update on the 2017 Hyundai Tucson?
14 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed